Long Road Ahead
by That Panda Guy
Summary: Sophia is found much earlier, but not by Rick's group. This story will follow Sophia's journey back to her friends and family.
1. Prologue

**SUMMARY:** Sophia is found much earlier, but not by Rick's group. This story will follow Sophia's journey back to her friends and family. More info at the end.

* * *

 _Prologue:  
The Longest Days  
_

* * *

It was hot. It was always hot in Georgia, but this day especially so. Carol had just spent her first night away from the highway. Her first night after abandoning her daughter. That was how she saw it, at least.

Carol, Andrea, and Shane were quickly approaching the car with that awful message on it. That message that meant "I don't know how to find you."

 _SOPHIA STAY HERE  
WE WILL COME EVERY_  
 _DAY_

Carol hated that it had come to that. Everyone did. They couldn't find her, so they left a message, along with food and water, and hoped that she would find them. They had a party full of police officers, experienced hunters, and outdoors-men. None of them could find her. And somehow they expected a twelve year old girl who had never even been camping to succeed at that same task.

More than anything Carol just wanted to know what had happened to her daughter. She was hopeful, but she knew hope would only get her so far. With every passing day, she stopped hoping to find Sophia alive, and instead started hoping to just find her.

So when she spotted all of the food and water missing from the hood of the car, that spark of hope came back to her. For a moment, even if just a moment, her daughter was alive. She wouldn't allow her rational side to take over. The side that knew it was probably just a starving passerby that found free food.

Either way, she ran. She ran like Sophia's life depended on it. Because after all, maybe it did. Shane and Andrea quickly caught on and followed her to the car.

But as Carol had feared, there was no sign of her. They began shouting her name at the top of their lungs. If she did take the food, maybe she was close by. There was too much of it for her to carry with her.

After a moment of silence following their shouts, Andrea spotted something. "Carol, come here!" she called.

Carol moved to the back of the car and stood next to Andrea. She could see a message written in black marker on the back windshield.

 _SOPHIA SAFE  
_ _HERD COMING  
_ _\- J_

* * *

Two days had passed since they rescued Daryl and Merle from the Governor. Two days since the brothers had gone their own way. A week since Lori had given birth to Judith. A week since Lori had died. Eight months since Carl had been shot. Eight months since Sophia disappeared.

So much had happened. So much kept happening. But all they could do was take it day by day. They needed to stay alive. And at that moment, staying alive meant antibiotics. They were almost out of them, and a single cut without antibiotics could mean death.

That's why Rick, Glenn, and Maggie found themselves walking the streets of a town far out of the Governor's reach. They were looking for a pharmacy, and as luck would have it, they found one. Much to their surprise, the front door was unlocked.

What they saw inside was possibly even more surprising. The place was was certainly abandoned, but seemingly none of the medication had been touched. How it had managed to stay in one place with the door unlocked, they didn't know.

They slowly began clearing the store. Maggie took the counter, Rick took the aisles, and Glenn took the storage room.

Rick and Maggie both sounded off a "Clear!" as Glenn was entering the storage room.

The moment Glenn aimed around the corner, a hand reached out and grabbed his handgun, twisting it out of his grip. Before Glenn could gather his thoughts, the grip of his handgun was punched into his face, disorienting him greatly. In what could have only been a few seconds, Glenn's situation had been entirely turned around. He was now held with an arm around his neck and his own gun to his head, with his attacker using him as a shield. It seemed that, as Maggie suggested, they were in no state to be going on runs.

Rick and Maggie turned and aimed in a split second, but it wasn't fast enough. They were now in a standoff with Glenn's attacker.

"Let him go!" Rick demanded.

The stranger looked nervous, but calm at the same time. He shook his head before saying "Let's all stay calm, alright? I don't want to hurt anyone. Now, my name is James, but my friends call me Jamie. What are your names?"

Rick only stared at Jamie for a moment before declaring "Our names aren't important. You need to let our friend go."

Jame shook his head once again. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want any of your stuff. I just want to leave. Now that we've established that," Jamie said, beginning to sound a bit more nervous, "I think we need to build some trust, alright? Because let's face it, we don't know each other. For all you know, the second you put down your weapons I'll kill all of you. But on the other hand, if I put down mine, you might put one between _my_ eyes. So we need to trust each other. Okay? And the best way to do that is to share our names. Now, I'm Jamie. What are your names?"

Maggie only wanted to protect Glenn, so she offered up her name first. "Maggie."

"Good, it's nice to meet you Maggie."

Rick gives Maggie a side-glance, annoyed that she had given into a stranger. "I'm Rick," he said before pointing to Glenn, "and that's Glenn."

Jamie's face takes on a mixture of curiosity and nervousness. "Rick and Glenn? Your last name wouldn't happen to be Grimes, would it?"

It was the other three's turn to be confused. "It is..."

"And do you have a son?!" Jamie asked frantically.

Rick didn't quite know how to proceed, and eventually decided to answer truthfully, with a nod.

"What's his name?!"

"Why do y-"

"Just tell me his fucking name, man!"

Rick once again hesitated, trying to find the right move. "His name is Carl."

Rick and Maggie were once again surprised when they saw relief pass over Jamie's face. "Oh my god... Okay, look, I'm going to put down the gun, alright? And I'm going to let Glenn here go. And I need you to promise you won't shoot me, because I promise you that you'll want to hear what I have to say next. Sound good?"

* * *

Carol was sat talking to Beth in the prison yard. The day had been a slow one. Despite the almost constant tension and threat of danger from the past few days, their slow days were still unbearable. It was in the middle of a conversation about Judith that Rick, Maggie, and Glenn's SUV rolled up to the gate. Carol paid them little mind as Axel opened the gate for them.

When she noticed that they had returned with an extra passenger, however, their arrival truly grabbed her attention.

She saw a young man, probably late teens or early twenties fussing with something inside the vehicle. He had short brown hair and a five 'o clock shadow. He wore olive cargo pants with a blue T-shirt. He had on a tan plate carrier with only two magazine pouches, a (filled) handgun holster mounted horizontally near the top, and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He appeared to be talking to someone inside the vehicle.

Most people in the courtyard had noticed the extra passenger, and all eyes were turned towards the SUV. To everyone's surprise, a second unexpected passenger stepped out of the vehicle, but was behind the young man and couldn't be seen. All Carol could make was that the other arrival was a girl shorter than the male, as he was looking down to talk to her.

After a quick moment of what seemed to be a pep talk, the two faced the prison hand in hand. Carol got a much clearer look at the girl. She wore blue jeans and a grey T-shirt, looked much younger than the male, and had dirty blonde hair.

 _Is that...?_ Carol thought. She stood and cautiously approached to get a better look, afraid of getting her hopes up.

As she stepped closer and closer she became more and more convinced that it was exactly who she thought it was.

When Carol was only thirty feet from the SUV the girl locked eyes with her, and for a moment, the world stood still.

"Mom?!"

And that was all it took. Carol had never felt such pure joy and relief in her entire life. She quickly closed the gap between the two and wrapped her daughter in a hug.

"Sophia! Oh my god it's you! You're here! I didn't think I'd ever get to see you again!" Carol let go of her, and held her at arms length to take in her appearance. "You're safe!" She stated in disbelief, before quickly disengaging from Sophia and looking to the young man standing next to her.

"You kept her safe?" She asked with tears in her eyes.

"Yes ma'am." Jamie replied, but Carol had already pulled him into a hug before he could get the second word out. She once again hugged Sophia, this time feeling some metal on her back. She leaned enough to see what it was, and saw that it was an MP5 submachine gun attached by a sling.

It was at that moment Carol realized that her baby girl was safe now, but hadn't always been. She had been out in the terrible cruel world that claimed the lives of people far stronger than her. It terrified Carol to think of what she had gone through, and what she may have done to survive.

Carol looked to Jaime, asking an unspoken question, and Jaime understood.

"We fought like hell to get here."

* * *

 **A/N:** This is just a prologue/test chapter for something I've had in my head for a while now. I'm posting it to gauge interest in a full length story, so if you want to see more of this let me know! Also, please let me know of any errors or general bad writing! I use FF as an avenue to improve my writing, and would love to hear what you do and don't like about it! Either way, thanks for reading!


	2. What Lies Ahead

**A/N:** Hi all! Sorry if you got two notifications about this chapter, I accidentally uploaded the wrong version. This is the first full chapter of the story, and I hope you all like it! Also, there's a special note at the end!

* * *

 _Chapter 1:  
What Lies Ahead_

* * *

There were a lot of roamers. A surprising amount, really, considering how deep into the woods Jamie was. His map had told him that he could cut off several hours of his journey to Newnan by leaving the beaten path, but navigation became increasingly difficult the further from the road he wandered.

He was trying to avoid killing any of the roamers. Not due to any sense of moral rightness, but because there were so many that any unnecessary attention was more threatening than leaving them alive. His steps were as light as he could manage, for fear of a snapping branch grabbing the attention of the undead.

It seemed that something else in the woods wasn't as concerned with subtlety as he was. The was a soft pitter-patter of footsteps coming from somewhere ahead of him. The roamers had taken notice too, but much like Jamie had no idea where it was coming from. The footsteps grew louder, and between the trees he saw streaks of blue ducking in and out. It was a definitely a person. And that person was running almost directly toward him.

As the person got closer, it became evident that it was a young girl, clearly afraid for her life. He couldn't blame her, because after all there were _a lot_ of roamers.

Unfortunately for her, a few of them had seen her. Unfortunately for Jamie, she was going to draw their attention right to him.

He wanted to help her. _This is my chance to redeem myself_ , he thought. Not that it was an entirely selfless act, if he saved her he would also be protecting himself. He couldn't let her run past him, he had passed at least a hundred roamers already, she would be running out of the frying pan into the fire.

He was hidden behind a tree and such she hadn't seen him. A small ravine caught his eye. It wasn't ten feet away and could get them out of sight of the roamers.

As soon as she was within range, he tackled her into the ravine, doing his best to cushion their fall. The moment they landed she began to scream, and Jamie covered her mouth with has hand. The action only served to make her panic more, and she started kicking and struggling to get out of his grip.

"Shhhhhh shh shh shh, shut up!" He whisper yelled to her. "I'm not going to hurt you! You need to be quiet! They're all around us!"

At that, she stopped struggling, but was still clearly panicked. "I'm gonna let you go, and I need to promise me you're not gonna scream, okay?"

She nodded.

As Jamie released her, she relaxed the slightest bit. "You good?" He asked. She once again gave a nod. "Then get up, we've got to get out of here." He grabbed the yellow and black climbing axe off of his belt and struck the top of the ravine, pulling himself out. When he had finally reached firm ground he turned to help the girl and noticed a frightful look on her face. Truthfully, it was familiar to him. It was the look that said "Please don't leave me." And he wouldn't. Not this time. Not again.

He flipped the axe and grabbed it by the serrated end, the handle pointed out to her. It was painful, the serrations were sharp, but luckily it didn't break skin. She grabbed on and he pulled her up, out of the ravine.

The panic stricken look on her face was he needed. He flipped the axe back into its proper position and turned around, preparing to fight. Sure enough, two roamers had gotten uncomfortably close, both within ten feet. He kicked the one on the right, knocking it down, and swung the axe at the left one. It made contact with the roamer's temple and went in easily, instantly killing the undead monster. As Jamie was pulling the axe out, the other one tried to stand. He quickly put a stop to it, however. With a single swing, he defeated that one too.

By now, every roamer in sight was looking at the pair. "Stay close, we're gonna have to run!" And they did. They ran through a hornet's nest of undead. Jamie didn't stop swinging or kicking for what felt like hours, but was truthfully only ten or so minutes. By the time they had all of the roamers behind them, exhaustion had set in. They took a slow pace to catch their breath.

The girl was clutching a doll. Jamie realized how absolutely terrified she must be. "My name's James. But you can call me Jamie. That's what everyone calls me." She looked at him nervously but said nothing. He waited for a response, but when none came he decided to keep talking. "What's yours?"

Once again, there was no response. She walked beside him clutching her doll, almost catatonic. "I get it. You can talk when you're ready." He didn't know how long had passed before she spoke, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes.

"My name's Sophia." It came out tense. She was still scared out of her mind.

"It's nice to meet you Sophia. Where did you come from? Where you with your parents? A group? I can't imagine you've been on your own this whole time."

She lightly shook her head and let out a meek "I was with a group. My mom was there though."

"Yeah?" He replied. "You get along well with your mom?"

She nodded in response.

"That's good... Do you know where your group was when you got separated?"

She once again only shook her head.

"I'm trying to get you back to your mom, Sophia, but that's going to be really difficult if you don't help me out."

"We were on the interstate." She mumbled.

"Okay, good!" Jamie said, pulling out his map. "Do you know which one?"

Another head shake, "Whichever one's closest, I guess."

He sighed. "Well, that's kinda the problem. I tried to cut through the woods to take some time off my trip, but I kinda lost where I was a few days ago. The best I can guess is that it was either 75 or 85, do either of those sound familiar?"

"I think it was 85." She confirmed.

"Which way were you heading?" Jamie asked eagerly.

"Everyone kept saying Fort Bennet."

"Fort Benning, you mean? That's smart. So you were heading south, I think that tells me everything I need to know. We're gonna try to find the place where you got separated first, alright? They're probably still around there looking for you."

An almost inaudible "Okay," was all she said.

* * *

Jamie was completely lost. He had only a vague idea of where he was to begin with and their flight from the roamers certainly didn't improve the situation. The sun was setting and they had yet to see the interstate. On top of that, Sophia was exhausted and barely managing to keep up with him.

"Are we close?" She asked him for the hundredth time.

"I can't say exactly, but I'm confident we are." She nodded, satisfied for the time being. He wouldn't admit it, but he gave up looking for the highway half an hour ago. He was just looking for a safe place to make camp before their daylight was completely gone.

After another twenty minutes of searching, he finally found a suitable area surrounded by bushes and branches. Nothing was going to sneak up them there, that was for sure.

"Alright, we're here." Jamie stated enthusiastically. Sophia only gave him a confused look, waiting for clarification. "We're staying here tonight," he continued, "the sun is gonna set soon, and we don't want to be wandering around when it does."

She cautiously looked around before asking, "Is it safe?"

"Of course," he replied, "it's as safe as we're gonna get, at least. With all this brush around, nothing can get close to us without being loud as all hell. Now come on, take a seat. You hungry?"

"Starving." She answered with fervor.

"Good, I've got something I've been saving for a special occasion." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a can with a worn yellow label. "It's a can of mixed fruit. It's not the most filling thing in the world, but it's sweet and has a day worth of calories. If we split it, we don't have to worry about starving for a whole half day." He joked. Surprisingly, it garnered a laugh from the young girl.

There was a long silence as they ate.

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna see my mom again, right?"

He gave a sad glance to the ground before responding.

"I can't promise you anything Sophia. But I will try my hardest to get you back to her."

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey all! Thanks for reading! I have a poll posted on my page I'd like for everyone to answer if you could. Basically it's just about whether you'd prefer one update a week on Fridays or an update whenever I finish a chapter. Either way, there will (ideally) always be on chapter per week. Also, don't forget to review! I like to know how I'm doing, whether it's good or bad, so please let me know what you think!


	3. Leave a Message

**A/N:** Sorry for the long wait on this one (well, longer than I had planned it to be), I've two dentist appointments and jury duty this week, so I haven't had a lot of spare time to write.

* * *

Jamie was really worried. He didn't know for sure, but he was fairly confident that he had been leading them the wrong way. He was disoriented to begin with, but having his one man supply of food spread out to two people was draining both of them. For about the fifth time, he had to stop and assess where the sun was. It turned out he was right. They were going the wrong way. He was in the process of getting them oriented the right way (or the closest he could get to it) when Sophia spoke up.

"Thanks for saving me. I don't know if I said that."

"Of course," he replied nonchalantly, "I wasn't gonna just leave you alone out there. How'd you get separated from your group anyhow?"

She continued walking closely behind him with her head down and her doll clutched to her chest. "There were two walkers chasing me and someone from my group, Rick Grimes, was trying to get them away from me. We got separated, and there were a lot of them. I just kept running until you found me."

He took in everything she said for a moment. "Walkers huh? Is that what you call them?" he asked. She nodded in response. "So Rick couldn't take two walkers? I'm guessing your group hasn't had to deal with a lot of them?"

She shook her head. "We have. Rick was a Sheriff. He's good at that stuff. He said he couldn't shoot them though, because it would bring more. And he didn't have a weapon like you do... Have you had to deal with a lot of them?"

Jamie hesitated, picking his words carefully. "Too many. I was in Savannah when all of this started. I lived there. I couldn't count how many there were. Most of the time we had to stick to the rooftops because there were just... so many on the street... thousands. Eventually it got so bad I had to leave. That's when I found you."

She nodded without a word.

"Anyways," he continued, "tell me about your group."

She talked for at least half an hour. About the group, the people they lost, the places they'd been. Jamie let her talk. It was interesting to him, and it seemed almost a little cathartic for her.

* * *

Not long after she had said almost everything there was to be said about her group, they stumbled upon an interstate. Both sides had miles of abandoned traffic, all heading the same way: out of the city.

"Hey, Sophia, I think this is I-85. Does any of this look familiar to you?"

She clutched her doll tighter, saying "I-I don't know, it all looks the same."

He nodded. "Yeah, I was afraid of that." He though for a moment, trying to come up with a plan. "Here's what I'm thinking. There's no way we went north in those woods. No matter which way we went, it couldn't have been north, and we still ended up here. So we're probably south of where you got lost. Since we were walking for a pretty long time, we're probably really far south. If we start heading north, we'll eventually come to where your group got split up at. With any luck, they'll still be there waiting for you."

"What if they aren't waiting for me?" she asked with genuine fear in her voice.

"I doubt they'd have given up this quickly," he replied, "but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

* * *

After roughly two hours of walking the interstate, they were both dead tired. The heat was bearing down on them, and they felt like they were making no progress. Sophia hadn't recognized anything yet. She had mentioned an RV that they should keep a lookout for, but other than that they didn't have much to go on.

"Recognize anything yet?"

"Not yet."

They had been having that same conversation for an hour, but it was at least keeping them sane.

Jamie noticed a vehicle a fair bit taller than others off in the distance, but couldn't get a good look at it. "Hold up a sec." He took his backpack off, grabbing the canteen and handing to Sophia, who gladly accepted it. He grabbed a pair of binoculars while she was drinking the water to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, there was definitely an RV down the road.

"Do you see something?" Sophia asked, handing him the canteen.

He traded her the binoculars and asked, "Is that the RV?"

She took a moment to find it and exclaimed, "That's it!"

"Then let's get moving!" he replied excitedly.

With the end in sight, they picked up their pace. They made it to the RV in only a few short minutes. Sophia ran to the side door, shouting "Mom!" and quickly opening it. What she found inside was heartbreaking to her. There was nobody. "I guess they couldn't fix it." She said as she stepped out on the vehicle, disheartened.

"Hey." Jamie called for her attention, pointing to a car. It had a message on the front hood, reading:

 _SOPHIA STAY HERE  
_ _WE WILL COME EVERY  
_ _DAY_

There was a fair amount of food on the hood as well.

"They're still here!" She said with a renewed joy.

"I told you they would be," he replied, grabbing a jar of peanut butter as he sat on the hood. "Now how about we dig into this peanut butter? I don't know about you but I'm starving.

* * *

They had been waiting for at least an hour. There was still daylight, but the sun was starting to set. Jamie was considering the possibility that they had already come for the day. They would have to sleep in the car for a night, or maybe the RV, but they had plenty of food so it couldn't be that bad. He was worried that the next day would come and there'd still be no sign of anyone.

Two days, he decided. They would stay tomorrow and the next day, but if they hadn't seen anyone by then they would move on to Fort Benning. The food would only last so long, and if the group had already left, it wouldn't do the two of them any good to get any further behind.

"Jamie!" There was panic in her voice. He turned to look at her, and saw she was pointing north up the road. "Walkers!"

He once again pulled out his binoculars, this time to see what they were dealing with. What he saw on the other end vaguely reminded him of Savannah. There were at least a hundred heading their way.

"Shit."

He opened up his backpack and pulled out a black marker. He then handed the backpack to Sophia with the instructions "Put all of the food in my pack, we've got to get out of here!"

She quickly began doing as he said, while he ran to the back of the car and started scribbling a message on the back windshield.

 _SOPHIA SAFE  
_ _HERD COMING  
\- J_

He capped the marker and threw it into his now full backpack before putting it on. As soon as it was on her started jogging but quickly realized Sophia wasn't following him. He looked back and saw her still just staring at the scene in front of her. The herd, the car, the RV.

He ran back to her and grabbed her hand, shouting "Come on!" and nearly dragging her to safety. It didn't take long though, before she started keeping up by herself.


End file.
